TIRANA, Albania -- Albanian artist Saimir
Strati glued 229,764 corks of various shapes and colours
over a plastic banner measuring 12.94 metres by 7.1 metres,
setting the world record for the largest cork mosaic.

Photo: Albanian artist Saimir Strati,
42, created the largest mosaic made of corksat
the Sheraton Hotel in Tirana. REUTERS/Arben Celi (enlarge
photo)

His work, named "Romeo with a crown of grapes
playing the guitar while dancing with the sea and the sun"
is a homage to life around the Mediterranean. He worked
14 hours of work a day for 28 days and completed his project
on Thursday.

"I love mosaics, they are a dying genre. I
follow the same technique used 3,000 years ago," said Saimir
Strati. "A mosaic requires you to work for a long
time and keep the emotion alive."
Photo: Albanian artist Saimir Strati is
using 300.000 corks on a banner measuring 96 square metres,
to create the largest cork mosaic. REUTERS/Arben
Celi (enlarge
photo)

"I also wanted to appeal to Mediterranean
countries not to create mosaics based on computer pixels,
but as our forefathers did. The Mediterranean is the home
of the mosaic."

His 25-year-old mosaic collection features one
created with fragments of egg shells and a portrait of Elvis
Presley, made with compact discs.

The artist did his latest work in a local hotel,
where he told visitors: "Drink, because I need the corks."

In the last two years Saimir
Strati has been recognised by Guinness World Record
officials as having created the world’s largest nail mosaic
with 500,000 industrial nails on a eight metre square wooden
board and the largest, three-dimensional toothpick mosaic
using 1,000,000 toothpicks.